Making soil

 The blue lupin green manure crop just before I pulled it out - almost too pretty to pull.

The pile of twitch covered with weedmat for a year turned into good soil plus dry roots.

Around this time last year I laboriously extended the vege garden by another few square metres, hauling out twitch and removing hundreds of stones, large and small. Wilby the terrieriste supervised me. He especially enjoyed snoozing on top of the big pile of soft, warm twitch that I dug out. But I spoiled his bed when I covered the pile with sheets of weed-mat, weighted down with rocks and boards.

I planted corn and pumpkins in the cleared patch in October, and while they grew the twitch started rotting down under its cover. After harvesting the vegetables (which are greedy feeders) in March I sowed blue lupins as a green manure crop where they had been. Two weeks ago I pulled up the lupins, and I also took the plastic off the twitch. Underneath I found a mixture of old dry dead roots and good new soil, made from the rotted leaves of the twitch and the soil left on its roots when it was pulled out. I raked away the old roots and put them in the compost heap (which was badly in need of carbon, so that was good).

As soon as time allows I will give the new patch of garden soil that formed under the twitch pile its first digging over (which will be easy with no twitch to pull out). Meanwhile I have broken the lupin plants up a bit, put them back on the soil they came from, and covered them loosely with some overly-wet and nitrogenous compost (the remains of a cold winter heap). The worms will now get to work on this lovely tucker, and by the time I am ready to plant main crop potatoes at the end of October there will be some enriched soil to do it in.

Improving the soil and making more of it is the foundation of eco-gardening. It's not that difficult since nature does most of the work. All the gardener does is nudge things along faster than they would otherwise go in the process of soil formation, by growing green manure crops and adding suitable materials from other sources. Soil is basically Minerals (rock particles which can be as coarse as sand or as fine as clay) plus dead Animals and Vegetables (once living things made up mainly of nitrogen and carbon which are processed by organisms living in the soil into humus or fine organic matter). We can't make more minerals for our soils and in any case we don't need to – the humus is the good stuff for making more plants grow, and that we can make without much trouble. 

 The broken-up lupins spread on the ground, with the first load of compost on top of them.

 Two weeks later the lupins are starting to rot down, and I have sowed beans in the fine soil created by previous soil-making efforts. The boards are to for standing on when working the beds, to prevent compaction of the soft, airy soil around the roots of growing plants.

A soil rich in humus will also be full of earthworms. It will be fine, loose and soft, and can usually be made ready for the next crop just by forking it over to remove weeds - no other digging required. It feels good that parts of my garden are already this in this satisfactory state, and the rest is on the way. It is well worth the initial effort I put in, and I can't thank the worms enough for their contribution.

Kate Sheppard in September Snow

 'Kate Sheppard' camellias in a vase of 'September Snow' rhododendron flowers

Today is Women's Suffrage Day. It's 118 years since New Zealand women won the right to vote in national elections – the first women in the world to gain this right. The floral emblem of the New Zealand suffrage movement is the white camellia. September is peak camellia time and white camellias were the choice of the suffragists who went to Parliament to give a floral thank you to the MPs who voted for female suffrage. 

 'Kate Sheppard' close up

One hundred years later a white camellia bush was bred especially for the Suffrage Centennial (can anyone tell me who bred it?), and named Kate Sheppard after the Christchurch feminist who was a prominent leader of the suffrage movement. I bought a 'Kate Sheppard' camellia bush in 1993, planted it first in my Diamond Harbour garden, and then moved it to Port Levy in 2002. She didn't seem to mind the move. She starts blooming in early September, and is in full flush by Suffrage Day. 

 Rhododendron 'September Snow' and a white spiraea bush in the Eco Garden

Another white flower bred in New Zealand which is out right now is Rhododendron `September Snow'. According to a curator at the Dunedin Botanic Gardens it was bred by a local garden enthusiast, Bruce Campbell, who crossed R. leucaspis with R. edgeworthii. It is an attractive small bush, and the flowers have a delicious nutmeg scent.

Both in the garden and in the vase, these are gorgeous flowers from shapely shrubs, and well worth a place in the Kiwi spring garden.

Happy Birthday Blog Cake

Banks Peninsula Walnut Cake with birthday candle

This blog was one year old yesterday, so I baked it a cake - which just happens to be one of the favourites of the Eco Forester. Its main ingredient is walnuts which come from our huge old tree, although the flavour is surely enhanced by the rum, raisins, treacle and the pinch of cloves which are also in it. The original recipe was one created by Lois Daish for a woman from Wairewa (aka Little River) on Banks Peninsula, just over the (big) hill from me, so it seems appropriate to call my slightly modified version Banks Peninsula Walnut Cake.

I wish I could share a slice with all of the thousands of people who have looked at The Eco Gardener in the past year (there have been 9,320 page views to date) but it obviously wouldn't stretch that far. Nor would I be able to get it to the nine countries (after NZ) which feature in my top ten readers' list over the past year, which in the order from most to least number of page views goes the USA, Australia, the UK, Canada, Germany, India, Russia, Malaysia, the Netherlands.

I am mystified and curious about what Malaysians and Indians find of interest in my blog (although I suspect that the latter was mainly my small friends the Mathias twins following the Adventures of Wilby from their school in Mussoorie). I am equally mystified about why the most popular post of the year (with 60 more views than the next most popular) was the one on gherkins. The # 2 slot was taken by Zucchini Relish, so maybe there is a thirst for knowledge on what to do with cucurbits out there. But since #3 was the post on Roasted Blackboy Peach Chutney, maybe it is preserves that are of interest.

It's all a mystery to me, but it's not at all mysterious why lots of people, all over the world, enjoy home gardening and home-made food as much as I do. So, dear readers - if I can't give you a slice of cake, at least I can give you the whole recipe. Enjoy!

BANKS PENINSULA WALNUT CAKE

Ingredients

1 ½ C walnuts, roughly chopped

200 g butter

100g brown sugar

2 T treacle

2 large eggs

150 g flour

1 t baking powder

pinch baking soda

pinch ground cloves

3 T milk

3 T dark rum

½ C raisins

Method

Grease and flour a 20 cm round cake baking tin.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C.

Cream the butter, sugar and treacle.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating in well.

Sift in the dry ingredients one third at a time, alternating with adding the milk and the rum.

Add the walnuts and raisins and mix well.

Bake for c. 50 minutes. 

This cake is fine served plain, or dusted with icing sugar, or (as in the picture) iced with lemon butter icing and decorated with walnut halves.

Where's Wilby?

Wilby looks across the Tank Farm towards Diamond Harbour on 

February 18, 2011. It's still too dangerous to be on that hill now.

I visit my Border Terrier friend Wilby in Lyttelton as often as I can, and we take strolls together around what is left of the town. We no longer go up the Stan Helms track, which is closed for fear of falling boulders, but stick to the lower streets where things are safer, if not exactly normal. As we were out walking last Friday afternoon we reminisced about his adventures this time last year, when he was staying with me and the first Big Shaking occurred. I will let him go on with the story...

Adventures of Wilby, Terrieriste -  Part the Sixteenth

Is it really a year since I was sent into exile? The Eco Gardener tells me so, and apparently has some arcane way of knowing, so I will take her word for it. I seem to recall that I thought things would be very dull in the country, for an urban creature like myself, and yet of course they were not.

Uncomfortable, yes – dull, no. I would have much preferred to have been snoozing on the end of the Master of Good Hope's bed in the early morning of September 4 one year ago rather than in that drafty shed in the garden, exposed to a hail of small plastic pots when the floor began rumbling and shaking.

Luckily that was the worst of it for me, and has been so far, although I shiver when I think of the dangerous places I have been since, such as the higher tracks above Lyttelton. I am also amazed every time I take a walk and see how much damage has been done quite close to home.

I am glad I was not sunning myself on this neighbourhood verandah when the shaking started on February 22nd.

There are a great many holes in the pavements these days - I have to proceed carefully.

I am keen to go back to the Eco Garden, and see how it is growing, but it seems there is a problem. My rightful place there has been taken for the nonce by one of those unspeakable creatures which some humans unaccountably favour above decent canines. I am told that she is a refugee from Lyttelton, and has required a lot of care, and must not leave the Eco Garden until her regular home is ready for her again. To which I say – pshaw! 

 Oh happy days (and nights) spent on the hearth rug.

 The usurper Jezebella hogs the hearth. What a smug looking beast!

Apparently she caught a mouse and a rat, and was praised for it. Beginners luck, I say. Despite my long vigils by the compost heap I was unable to succeed at rodent hunting, and was mocked for it. Nevertheless, I long to go back and smell the flowers again, and to take the Eco Forester for a walk up the road. If only the place would stop shaking...

Tomato Paneer Curry

with Sourdough Flatbread

 Sourdough Flatbread, a jar of home-bottled tomato puree, 

and Tomato Paneer Curry

Bottled tomato puree has many uses, and goes with every cuisine from Italy to India, and most parts of the Americas. Paneer is a uniquely Indian fresh cheese, which is firm but not matured. It is very bland in taste - I think of it as the dairy version of tofu. It is available in Indian stores in New Zealand, and I picked up some in Yogiji's in Christchurch on Friday.

When I got it home and went to find a recipe for a paneer curry, I found that my Indian vegetarian recipe book had done a runner, and not one of my four other Indian cook books had a recipe. Hooray for the Web! Within three minutes I had found an excellent recipe at Veggie Belly (interesting name for a website) and this is the basis of the recipe below. I have modified it slightly to simplify it, and to make use of my home-bottled tomato puree rather than out-of-season fresh tomatoes.

The Veggie Belly recipe says to serve it with roti or chapatis, classic Indian unyeasted flatbreads. I decided to experiment with using some of my sourdough starter (which lives in the fridge between weekend baking days, and is fed with flour and water every Wednesday) to make an easy flatbread. I made up the recipe below, and it made very tasty, soft, buttery flatbreads which went well with the curry.

 

TOMATO PANEER CURRY

[serves 3-4 as a main dish]

Ingredients

2 C pureed tomatoes (fresh, canned or home bottled)

1 t tomato paste

1 T oil

½ t cumin seeds

¼ t black mustard seeds

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 t ground cumin

½ t ground turmeric

¼ - ½ t chilli powder, to taste

salt to taste

1 T tomato sauce

350g/2 cups paneer, cubed

Method

Heat the oil in a heavy pot, add the mustard and cumin seeds and cook them until the mustard seeds start to pop.

Add the onion and cook it gently until soft.

Add the rest of the spices and stir them for a minute or so.

Add the pureed tomatoes and tomato paste, and mix everything well.

Simmer the sauce for 20 minutes or so.

While it is cooking heat some oil in a heavy frying pan and fry the cubed paneer in batches, until golden brown.

As each batch is finished, drop it in a large bowl of very hot, salted water.

Leave the fried cubes in the hot water for 10-15 minutes.

When the tomato gravy is ready, drain the paneer cubes and add them to the sauce.

Add salt to taste, and cook for around 5 minutes.

Stir in the tomato sauce and turn off the heat.

Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

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SOURDOUGH FLATBREAD

(makes 4 large flatbreads)

Ingredients

½ C sourdough starter mix

4 T melted butter

½ T salt

enough white flour to make a soft but not sticky dough

Method

Mix all the ingredients into a soft, smooth dough.

Divide the dough in four, and shape each piece into a ball.

On a well floured board, roll out one piece of dough into a large circle, to fit into a frying pan.

Heat a heavy frying pan; melt a knob of butter in it.

Put the circle of dough in the pan, and as it starts to rise a little, press it down gently.

When the dough is light brown on the pan side, turn it over and repeat the process on the other side.

Keep the flatbreads warm in a low oven as you cook each one.